[2] Interdisciplinary Research FieldsThis research project offers interdisciplinary, international teams the opportunity to connect ancient texts and cultures to an extent that has never before been possible. None of the vital questions surrounding the historical origins of the early Christian belief in the holy spirit can be addressed thoroughly by one scholar in a single field of expertise, yet all of them can be explored to extraordinary depths by small, interdisciplinary research teams.

Each team is conducting research on a discrete set of questions about the historical roots of early Christian belief in the holy spirit that can only be undertaken in an interdisciplinary venture. The questions will revolve around a variety of foci:

Greco-Roman Medicine and Physiology. E.g., the correspondences between pneuma in conception and birth in Greco-Roman medical texts (e.g., Aristotle; Galen; the Alexandrian medical tradition) and in early Christian conceptions of new birth and conversion.

Greco-Roman Prophecy and Divination. E.g., the ways in which divination in Greco-Roman and early Christian literature illuminate one another with respect to altered states of consciousness, the role of gender, etc.

Dead Sea Scrolls.E.g., the relationship between the two pneumata in the body (according to authors such as Galen), the Teaching on the Two Spirits (1QS 3-4), and the Pauline distinction between the pneumatikoi and the psykikoi.

Jewish Mysticism.E.g., how the phenomena of mysticism in Greco-Roman texts (e.g., Iamblichus), Jewish merkavah mysticism, and early Christianity illuminate one another.

In the rich interdisciplinary environment of research teams that work together in an ongoing relationship, other questions will arise and, perhaps, replace these initial questions. The potential for meaningful inquiry is massive, given the unique dimensions of this research project.

[3] Project ElementsThis project will model for future scholarly inquiries, in a vast array of disciplines, the ways in which interdisciplinary and transatlantic scholars can successfully combine rich and ongoing personal relationships, state-of-the-art technologies, and traditional modes of production, such as lectures and a published monograph. More specifically, these means include:

Meetings of the individual research team meetings. During 2010, members of each team will engage in cooperative ventures that bring together fields of study to understand the historical roots of early Christian pneumatology: the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament; Greco-Roman medicine and the New Testament; Jewish mysticism and the New Testament; and Greco-Roman divination and the New Testament.

A symposium in 2011 at Leiden University, at which all research team members will gather for discussion and the presentation of research results.

A published volume which contains the articles that will emerge from the research units and symposium. The directors of this research project currently edit several academic series, two of which would provide suitable venues for the articles that will result from this collaborative research. Professor Frey edits both series of Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Siebeck/Mohr); Professor Levison edits Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Walter de Gruyter).

A public lecture in Boston, delivered by Jack Levison under the auspices of the International Catacomb Society, that encapsulates some of the most fascinating and salient dimensions of this interdisciplinary enterprise.